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FIE FIRESIDE 



JOHN D. LONG 



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AT THE FIRESIDE 



AT THE FIRESIDE 



John D. Long 



BOSTON 
ALBERT HARRISON HALL 

1914 






Published November, 1914 



am 

Author 



samuel usher 
Boston, Massachusetts 



TO HELEN 

SOME of .these verses have for several 
years been floating about in the news- 
papers, and now with others — all written 
a good while ago — they are printed 
together in this book for the sake of old 
times, and I dedicate them to you who were 
so filially in sympathy with me in the 
receding memories and associations they 
recall. 



CONTENTS 




At the Fireside 


9 


Margaret . 


10 


Helen 


12 


Curlylocks 


13 


Thanksgiving 


14 


Per Astra ad Coelum 


i6 


Asleep 


17 


On the Train 


i8 


Crow Point 


19 


The Music Box 


22 


Nezinscot 


23 


The Old Songs 


24 


The Mountains of Maine . 


26 


Wood Notes 


28 


The Dead Leaves 


31 


Apple Buds 


34 


School Days 


36 


The Beach 


37 


Sunset . . . . 


39 


Limitation 


40 


Jesus . . . . 


41 


Evening Hymn 


42 


Our Minister 


43 


Our Sexton 


44 



Ordination Hymn 


46 


The Pilgrim 


47 


Centennial Hymn, 1876 . 


48 


The Flag . 


49 


The Soldiers' Home 


51 


The Capitol at Washington 


52 


A Kindly Critic . 


55 



AT THE FIRESIDE 

AT nightfall by the firelight's cheer 
My little Margaret sits me near, 
And begs me tell of things that were 
When I was little, just like her. 

Ah, little lips! you touch the spring 
Of sweetest sad remembering, 
And heart and hearth flash all aglow 
With ruddy tints of long ago. 

I at my father's fireside sit. 
Youngest of all who circle it, 
And beg him tell me what did he 
When he was little, just like me. 



[9] 



MARGARET 

I AM a little three-year old: 
My eyes are heaven, my hair is gold. 
What heaven and gold are, I don't know, 
But what I mean is, Ma says so. 

Waked by the birdies and the sun. 
Till night I chatter and I run; 
And am so happy all day through 
I make all others happy, too. 

They say my face is sweet and fair 
Beneath the big brown hat I wear; 
Sometimes I stick it with a trim 
Of dandelions round the brim. 

At night when tire my little feet, 
Tm glad my bread and milk to eat; 
In mama's lap my head I lay, 
This is the prayer I always say : — 



[lOj 



" Now I lay me down to sleep, 
Father in heaven, take care of me: 

May my sleep, be sound and sweet 
And my waking happy be." 

In bed tucked safe from harm and cold, 
Shadows and slumber round me fold: 
Sometimes I dream that, one by one. 
The brown mice o'er my pillow run. 



[II] 



H' 



HELEN 

"ELEN is aged two; 
Look at the tender blue 
Her eyes have tempted from the heaven- 
liest patches in the skies! 
Look at her rose-tint face, 
The ineffable fine grace 
That in its smiles and dimples everywhere 
upon it lies! 

Had lady's hand e'er such 
An inborn grace of touch? 
Could nestling head more gently woo, for- 
giving or forgiven? 
Did ever mouth put up. 
Or bud, so fresh a cup? 
Or little feet make doorway seem so like 
the gate of heaven? 

Father enfold, I pray, 
This little lamb alway: 
My arm and love will such poor shelter be 
in storm or stress, 
That oh ! may thy great arm 
Keep her dear feet from harm. 
And thy great love enwrap her in its 
perfect happiness! 



[12] 



CURLYLOCKS 

THE door bursts open and in he runs, 
Dearest to us of God's little ones. 

Mid the clover half-hid, he has gathered up 
The dandelion and buttercup. 

Their tribute of yellow gold-dust glows, 
Like down upon fruit, on his chin and nose. 

The embodied sunshine always lies 

On his curly fair hair and bright brown eyes. 

His face so swiftly mirrors his heart, 

It sparkles with speech ere his lips are apart. 

He gleams through the house from morn till 

night, 
A laughing, tiptoeing soul of light. 

All beautiful colors, all bright spirits meet 
In this Raphael's cherub on volatile feet. 



[13] 



THANKSGIVING 

LAST night, dear Hilda, was Thanks- 
giving Eve, 
Deluged and wild. The wind surged in 

great waves 
That beat upon the house and wrapped it 

round 
And made it tremble, yet awoke no fear; 
For in their mighty hands there seemed a 

sense 
Of safety, as, enfolded in the heart 
Of a strong man, a woman nestles safe, 
Sure that no harm can happen though the 

arm 
That clasps might crush her in its play- 
fulness — 
A lion's strength, yet gentle to her love. 
Over the beach and wharves the tide 

rushed up. 
And swimming o'er the meadows made 

them lakes. 
We on the shore felt all the toss and storm 
And lingered by the lamplight and the fire. 
The rain pelted the windows, cheating us 
To come and look into the face of night. 
So dark that not a feature answered back. 
And yet the very tempest made me glad 
To think that thou, far inland from the sea, 

[14] 



Hadst reached the shelter of thine own dear 

hearth, 
Safe-havened from all risk of care and toil, 
Letting thy heart go free, once more at rest 
And happy like a child again at home. 
I knew God's love and peace were with thee 

there 
And breathed, unheard, my Benedicite. 
Was it unheard? It may be One did hear, 
And give his angels charge concerning thee, 
So thou shalt dash thy foot against no stone. 

Thanksgiving day. Still wild the storm. 
The rain 

Is snow, sweeping cross land and sea in 
wraiths 

Of mist, yet warmer, merrier makes in- 
doors 

New England's festival of hearth and home. 

I sit beside my fire, but not alone ; 

For from the past come clustering in old 
friends. 

Kinsfolk and sainted ones who years ago 

Sat at my father's board Thanksgiving day, 

In the sweet village-time among the hills. 

My heart is full of memories, and of thanks 

For life's rich fruits, for friendships and 
for faith 

In human hearts, and sure for you, my 
friend. 

Dear spirit that hath healing in thy wings. 

[15] 



PER ASTRA AD COELUM 

TIME was I loved the stars and skies 
For their own sake — nor now less 
fond — 
Yet now far past their range my eyes 
Go searching for the heaven beyond. 

Time was I loved your soulful eyes 
For their own sake — nor now repent, 

So soft the lovelight in them lies, 
Of every mood so eloquent. 

Yet now like stars they long have been 
Not more the light by which I trod 

Than gateways where I enter in 

To breathe the love and peace of God. 



[1 6] 



ASLEEP 

THIS little baby child hath cried 
Himself asleep at some light, childish 
pain ; 
And on his face its traces still abide 

Like shapes of clouds o'er meadow 

flying, — 
Upon his cheek a teardrop lying, 
As on a leaf a single drop of rain. 

See! as I bend above his face, 

The shade of grief flies like the hurrying 

cloud, 
And like a flood of sunshine in its place. 
The shadow yielding to the splendor, 
A smile so sunny breaks and tender, 
His soul seems speaking through it half 
aloud. 

Say, what is passing in his sleep? 

What are the dreams across his vision 
driven? 

Hath one, too young to sow, begun to reap? 
Doth he, at one light grief repining. 
The worthlessness of earth divining. 

Already dream of better things in heaven? 



[17] 



ON THE TRAIN 

IN the late fall, from out the window of the 
car, 
I see the restful wings of night slow fall 
and fold, — 
And naught distinct, as swift we shoot, ex- 
cept afar 
The soft horizon-line of melting hill and 
wold. 

Then faint at first, brighter at every throb, 
glow forth 
The stars that pioneer the lighting of 
God's dome. 
Ay! there ye are, ye dipper jewels of the 
north. 
Who ever go before and stand above my 
home. 

My babes have said their prayers, and 
nestle to their sleep; 
My wife, soul-full for them and me, looks 
out on you : 
Guard them, ye starry sentinels, while on I 
sweep ; 
Flash them the message of my tender 

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love and true. 



[1 8] 



CROW POINT 

HOW sweet the day! E'en as a miser 
wakes 
At times under the touch of pity's hand 
And gives profusely from his hoarded store, 
His face as tender as a mother's smile 
Ere yet his greed encase it o'er again, 
So now the bleak November opes its heart 
And pours o'er all the earth and sky the soft 
And melting haze of August, and we walk 
Through fields again, and sit upon the 

rocks. 
Here to the dreams, in which this Sabbath 

day 
The whole world seems to sleep, we also 

yield. 
Into our raptured hearts we draw the deep 
And blessed influence of the scene. Afar 
The blue hills fade and veil their ragged tops 
Beneath the light that softens them: the 

bare 
Brown fields flush almost into beauty, as 
The face of age does sometimes catch again 
The beauty of its youth : the fir-trees fringe 
The landscape with immortal hues of green. 
Across the outspread meadow-lands appear 
The furrows of the earth just ploughed, and 

fresh 

[19] 



With all the fragrance of the new-turned 

sod; 
The sheep, that herded closer when we 

came, 
Stand picturesquely grouped upon the ledge 
And scan us with grave eyes : the cattle love 
The sun, and saunter feeding here and there, 
Unconscious that they grace the hillsides 

now 
As when the Hebrew poet in his song 
Sang of the cattle on a thousand hills. 
Out of the hazy light, e'en as we gaze, 
Grow on our eyes the Quincy spires far off: 
The Weymouth village roofs break through 

the air, 
And masts of ships at anchor, and, anon, 
The outlines dim of nestling cottages. 
Sweet church bells, softened by the dis- 
tance, strike. 
And children's voices come, we know not 

whence. 
And from the turnpike bridge the thud of 

hoofs. 
Eastward, incessant roars the rolling surf; 
And, just below us, flocks of ducks alight 
Upon the water, gabbling as they swim; 
The islands in the harbor lie asleep, 
Unwaked, so still the surface of the sea, 
So slumberous the drowsy atmosphere. 
A rift of inky cloud, its edge defined 

[20] 



As with a pencil, rests high up the sky 
And finds its shadow in the wave below; 
Elsewhere so faint the light's gradations 

that 
The sky and sea upon the horizon meet, 
And mingle into one. Low in the west 
E'en as we look, the misty veil is rent, 
And in a single opening silver-lined 
The sun half lifts its heavy eyelid and, 
All else still shrouded in the haze, 
Its rays fall only on the fortress walls 
And on the sails of schooners gliding past, 
Illumining them with light so soft and rare, 
So delicately fading on the deep 
That artist's pencil ne'er can copy it, 
Nor other than the canvas of the soul 
Reflect its memory. 

Let us walk on : 
For now the setting sun's last cloud-tinge 

faints. 
The village with its belfry and its elms, 
Its wharfs and slopes and houses on the hill. 
Seen from the rustic railing of the bridge 
On which we linger as we pass, doth seem 
Like some New England painter's work, 

who paints, 
Pent up in town, his dear old village home. 
Farewell! the night sinks down, the rain- 
drops fall. 
And chill November shuts her heart again. 

[21] 



THE MUSIC BOX 

IDLY a music box I wound, 
And in the gloaming sat alone; 
The shadows blended with the sound; 
Memories came mellowing with the tone. 

It played two tunes — one like the glad 
Song-greeting of the birds at dawn : 

One a pathetic minor, sad 
As loving eyes of love forlorn. 

Now loud, now low, it laughed and wept. 
Then faltered down, slower yet and 
slower, 

Until the lingering last bars left 

Were the most plaintive of the score. 

Slow, intermittent, faint the notes 
Like single pearls of sweetness roll, 

Till, with the last and sweetest, floats 
Into the far-away my soul. 

So in those shadowed years died she 

Who was the melody of love. 
Life ebbing slow and plaintively. 

Like heart-drops from a bleeding dove; 

Yet struck an ever sweeter note. 
Almost too faint to hear at last, 

Though backward now its echoes float 
The clearest, sweetest of the past. 

[22] 



NEZINSCOT 

RETURIvTED from years of rack and toil, 
Escaped from fetter-locks of care, 
Again I walk my native soil, 
Again I breathe my native air. 

The snow is on the circling hills; 

The crisp smoke curls its morning tress; 
My heart with old-time freedom fills, 

I feel again its restfulness. 

Beside bright hearths with clustering 
friends, 

We live our memories back once more ; 
Too soon the winter evening ends ; — 

It can recall, but not restore. 



[23] 



THE OLD SONGS 

THE songs we sang were few a.nd plain : 
We sang them o'er and o'er again. 

'Twas long ago, yet now and then 
We meet and sing them o'er again. 

And when the last sweet chord has died, 
We sit in silence side by side. 

Our hearts are full to running o'er 
With raindrops from the skies of yore; 

And none dares speak, but, silent all, 
We almost hear the shadows fall. 

Then, while the twilight deepens fast, 
As dim and somber as the past. 

Like souls revisiting the spheres 
Come back to us the buried years. 

And in their light, but not as then, 
We live their seasons o'er again. 

Till closing round our downcast eyes 
We feel the blinding tear-mists rise. 



[24] 



The olden songs, the simple lays, 
Full of the breath of other days, 

With dear associations rife. 
Have come to be a part of life, 

And though they touch the heart with pain 
We sing them o'er and o'er again. 



[25] 



THE MOUNTAINS OF MAINE 

I NE'ER shall forget when returning one 
day 
To my home 'mid the mountains of Maine, 
When the summer was nigh and the fair 
hand of May 
Was bedecking the country again, 
What a thrill of delight, inexpressibly sweet, 

I felt while extending my gaze 
O'er the scenes, unforgotten, where often 
my feet 
Had rambled in earlier days. 

What a welcoming look I imagined I found 

In the old streaked mountains in view, 
In the quick-flowing streams, and meadows 
elm-crowned. 
And the fields clothed in summer's bright 
hue. 
How the full honest breeze I had tasted so 
oft, 
With health and with vigor o'erladen, 
Swept over my cheek with a touch that was 
soft 
As the smooth, velvet hand of a maiden. 



[26] 



My soul swelled with joy, springing up to 
the skies 
With the view that was spread out before 
it; ' 

Then, deeper emotions beginning to rise, 

A feeling of sadness came o'er it: 
For I knew from these scenes of my boy- 
hood around me, 
The lakes, and the woods and the plain, 
I must part and dissever the ties that had 
bound me 
So long to the mountains of Maine. 



[27] 



WOOD NOTES 

O'ER broken ways, through rock and 
wood, 
By brook, by steep, by solitude, 
By farm-house lone the cliff below, 
Into the forest depths we go. 
The moss yields softly to our feet; 
The birches o'er our pathway meet; 
Their leaves the azure dot, and make 
A floating, happy bridge of sighs. 
Hid woodmates call and bird-notes break 
In loud and sudden ringing cries, 
Till half-way up the mountain side. 
Gleams through the trees the sheeny tide. 
As if some god with wand had smit 
The mighty rock and drawn from it 
The cool, sweet waters forth to make 
The bridal of the wood and lake. 
Around its rim, the forest shade 
In darkened lines of light is laid. 
Above and imaged in its breast, 
O'erhangs the bald lone mountain crest. 
Set like a gem, its face is seen. 
Raising like lips its little steeps 
To kiss the breath that o'er them sweeps; 
Then not a wrinkle on its sheen. 
Save when upleaps the springing trout, 
Whence bubbling circles widen out, 
Until exhausted in their reach. 
They faint in silence on the beach. 

[28] 



'Twas here we came in sporting days; 
Our roaring camp-fires, red with blaze, 
Inflamed the night and Hght the tide 
With fans of firelight flaring wide. 
Here on the fallen trunks that sleep 
Bent in the wave and half on shore, — 
Here on the tonsured rocks that keep 
The waters back that spray them o'er, 
We lay at morn and lay at night 
And threw with merciless delight 
The gold-flecked swimmers to the skies; 
Yet all to pity turned, instead. 
So still they lay with filming eyes 
And fading spots of blue and red. 
Till gasping hard and fast for breath, 
Tossing the nestling leaves, in vain 
They struggled, in the throes of death. 
The living waters to regain. 

At night, weary of mountain ways. 
We saw, above the hills afar 
The gloom succeed the sunset's blaze. 
Whence burst anon the evening star 
To gem with gold the August night 
And touch the wave with broken light. 
The air from nooks and arches grim 
The open tree- trunks wandered through; 
We saw the mountain top grow dim. 
Fading and dark, mid falling dew ; 
We saw the rich dark flashing light 

[29] 



The ripples threw beneath the night; 
And still we heard, in pulses low, 
Their ceaseless beatings ebb and flow; 
We saw the clouds drive swiftly through 
The starlit depths of faintest blue, 
And heard the voices in the air 
That rise at night in forest deep 
And weird and pensive music bear 
To lull the senses into sleep. 

At morn we saw the sun uprise 

And fire the forest green anew 

With every tint of verdant dyes, 

Striking the mountain-side with light, 

While all below still grayer grew 

And woods and waves wore twilight hue, 

Thus crowning day upon the night. 

And all this sweet transition hour 

A thousand warblers waked and sung 

And drenched the branches with a shower 

Of tuneful trills that interrung. 

The morn was brimmed with melody. 

That overflowed in countless rills 

Through ether purling to the sea 

And rippling down aerial hills. 

They struck the dewy leaves and woke 

As many echoes slumbering there, 

Till the whole world in carol broke. 

And myriad song-notes thrilled the air. 

[30] 



THE DEAD LEAVES 

SUCH a glory of red 
And orange and gold 
On hill-top and wold, 
On the slope and the side, 
From the foot to the head, 
Of the mountains anigh, 
As far and as wide 
As the outlooking eye 
Hath range to behold! 
As if in the night 
A billow of gold 
Had flamingly rolled 
The wilderness o'er. 
And left in its trace 
The magnificent light 
Of the colors it bore, 

To enrich the whole face 
Of the earth with a store 
Of measureless gold. 

They are fallen and dead ; 

And the fulness and strength 
Of their beauty have fled ; 
And, wasted at length 
And withered and thin. 
Their delicate frames 
Already begin 

[31] 



To be painfully plain, 

Like a man when the flames 
Of fever and pain 

Have hollowed his face, 
And tightened the skin, 

And discovered the trace 

Of the bones of his face. 

They lived and are dying. 
I fancy them sighing 
Over the past. 
They sigh that at last, 
After all the sweet phase 
Of the long summer days, 
The end is but death ; 

And that life at the best 

Is a trial and test 
And only a breath. 

And almost I see 

Them looking at me 
With sorrowful faces, 

As day after day 

I bear them away 

And carefully lay 
Them in burial places. 



[32] 



The bare, stricken boughs 
Like mourners are left 
Alone and bereft 

Like statues of grief 
Till the spring-time awake, 
And the new life arouse 

Each slumbering leaf. 
So may it awake 
And, like spring weather, make 

The better soul rise, 
Like a blossom awake 

And bloom out of the eyes! 



[33] 



APPLE BUDS 

BURST, ye apple-buds, red and white; 
Breathe your fragrance into the 
dawn ; 
You will fade and fall ere Saturday night, 
And the apple-boughs wonder where you 
are gone. 

Sing, ye little birds, robin and wren; 

Build your nests where the buds unfold; 
Where will you be, and your nestful, when 

The apple-boughs shrivel in winter cold? 

Burst, fond heart, with the love you bestow; 
Sing, happy heart, with the love you 
bring: 
The apple-blooms fall, and the birds they 
go, 
But love in the soul is eternal spring. 

Lift your tender eyes, violets blue ; 

Cling, daisy, close to the meadow's soft 
breast ; 
For your petals will weep, tear-dropped 
with dew. 
When your false lover, sunbeam, kisses 
the west. 



[34] 



Toss, ye idle winds, out on the leaves; 

Woo the gold in her sunny hair: 
Death and October await their sheaves; 

Then wooing is weeping, and hope de- 
spair. 

Burst, fond heart, with the love you be- 
stow; 
Sing, happy heart, with the love you 
bring; 
The leaves they fall, and her tresses lie low. 
But love over death forever is king. 



[35] 



SCHOOL DAYS 

THE years go by, but never lose 
The garnered wealth they bore, 
The morning, kissing up the dews, 
Is richer than before. 

All rains that fell, all suns that shone, 

In this June's roses stay: 
The past is all the more our own 

When clustered with to-day. 

So beams our school-time here and now 

Eden of book and scroll — 
The scholar's sunrise on the brow, 

His stirring in the soul. 

Again we part, but with us take 
The bygone's draught divine, 

For in our hearts afresh awake 
The days of auld lang syne. 



[36] 



THE BEACH 

DEAR friends In sweet remembered days 
Spent long ago beside the sea, — 
Once more, re-singing olden lays, 
I ask you live them o'er with me. 

So long, so short ago they seem. 
Half fact, half fancy, of our youth. 

At once kaleidoscoped in dream, 
Yet clearly outlined in the truth. 

Apart, they bind us still. We meet — 
A word or nod — we pass — and, lo. 

We stroll the sands, and at our feet 
The great blue waters ebb and flow. 

Fair skies are over sea and land; 

The woods are cool, the fields are green; 
The church, the light on either hand, 

The fulness of repose between. 

We swim at dawn, we raise the mast. 
We lie on rocks, watch brig and barque 

With great white sails glide slowly past, 
Till the long day glooms into dark. 



[37] 



We gather at the evening meal; 

The candle flickers on the wall ; 
Outside the warm night shadows steal ; 

The sea's deep murmurs rise and fall. 

We sit about the open door, 

We tell old tales, we sing old staves, 
Till the cool stars deep slumber pour. 

And dreams are in the lulling waves. 



[38] 



SUNSET 

ON the West 
Behold the gorgeous mountain crest! 
Dusk hills and slopes, where cattle feast, 

Enclose the East. 

In the West 
The crimson sun lies down to rest; 
Yet from its bars one ray released 

Streams to the East. 

In the East 
A cottage window-pane, increased 
And to a flaming meteor dressed, 

Out-glows the West. 

Such are they 
Who, dwelling far from light away, 
Yet, catching there a ray divine, 

Supremely shine. 



[39] 



LIMITATION 

YOU walk amid a wilderness 
Of hurrying forms and eager feet, 
And now and then a hand you press 
Or smile to nods from those you meet. 

And yet you are not here, but far; 

Your mind is not with forms and flesh ; 
Your soul is where the breezes are, 

As free from weight, as free from mesh. 

Your soul is where the breezes are ; 

Nay, faster rides than rolls the sea. 
Outruns the wind, and strike th star, 

And whirleth through immensity. 

It is not with you on the earth ; 

It sees not those who pass you by; 
But, proudly mindful of its birth, 

It springeth, firelike, to the sky. 



[40] 



JESUS 

I WOULD, dear Jesus, I could break 
The hedge that creeds and hearsay 
make. 
And, Hke thy first disciples, be 
In person led and taught by thee. 

I read thy words — so strong, so sweet; 
I seek the footprints of thy feet; 
But men so mystify the trace, 
I long to see thee face to face. 

Wouldst thou not let me, at thy side, 
In thee, in thee so sure, confide? 
Like John, upon thy breast recline 
And feel thy heart make mine divine? 



[41] 



EVENING HYMN 

THE evening winds begin to blow, 
The shadows now grow long; 
But still we linger, ere we go, 
To sing our latest song. 

Sing praise to God for sun and shade. 
For summer's smiles and tears, 

For all the blessings he has laid 
Upon our teeming years. 

Sing to each other truer love, 

Affection's kindly glow, 
The tenderness of God above 

In human hearts below. 

E'en as the dews now gently fall. 

So, smiling on the day, 
May God at eve upon us all 

His benediction lay. 



[42] 



OUR MINISTER 

THREESCORE and ten the years that 
round 
Your full life to its perfect sphere, 
With the white wreath of honor crowned, 
The full corn ripened in the ear. 

To God, to man thy brother, true. 
Give not yet o'er the Christian strife ; 

Let us who love you, still pursue 
The leading of your noble life. 

God's peace is in your heart, well earned; 

Sure treasure yours, laid up above: 
The bread you cast hath all returned 

In harvests of unmeasured love. 



[43I 



OUR SEXTON 

GRAY in service and true as steel, 
An honest man is our sexton old, 
One of the sort in whom we feel 

The antique stamp of the genuine gold. 

Sure as the clock that stands in the tower 
For forty long years he has rung the bell, 

Struck the glad chimes of the wedding hour. 
And tolled the sad notes of the funeral 
knell. 

The homely church, old-fashioned and grim. 
He loves it now as he loved his wife ; 

The organ and pulpit commune with him. 
And the aisles and pews are his very life. 

He loves its glooms, and its shadows win 
His spirit back to the silent yore: 

He has ushered so many out and in! 

He remembers so many who come no 
more! 

He would sooner part hand than fail his 
trust : 

Forty long years and no day lost ! 
Winter and summer, come what must, 

Duty has found him true to his post. 

[44] 



But God has now smitten him hard, and 
torn 
The wife of his youth from his side apart; 
And he enters the church, this Sabbath 
morn. 
With aching lids and a broken heart. 

Yet he rings the bell with a swing so bold 
None knows he winces at every throb. 

Nor do I till in mine his hand I hold, 
And hear him, through lips that quiver, 
sob — 

" For many a week in pain she lay. 

But grew easy at last at morning's peep: 

I sat by her bedside night and day, 
And closed her eyes when she fell asleep." 

He catches the rope in dumb despair ; 

The bell rings out wide over the town. 
And utters abroad on the morning air 

The cry of anguish his heart keeps down. 



[45] 



ORDINATION HYMN 

OH Father, let thy spirit wake, 
Thy flame inspire his soul we pray 
Who here the bread of life shall break, 
And point to us thy truth and v/ay. 

Our shepherd who shall lead, be he. 
To pastures green by waters still; 

Thy staff to comfort us so we. 

Through shadows walking, fear no ill. 

A prophet sitting by the well. 
Let him thy living water draw. 

Interpreter to wisely tell 

In spirit and in truth thy law. 

Be with him that he lift thy rod, 
With us that we stay up his hand, 

So we with him and all with God 
Move onward to the promised land. 



[46] 



THE PILGRIM 

ALMIGHTY God, to thee we raise 
Our hymns of thankfulness and praise, 
Within the hollow of whose hand 
The Pilgrim sought his promised land : — 

Not the rich pastures of the vine 
Flowing with honey, milk and wine, 
But bleak shores swept by storm and sea, 
His rude sole welcome — thou art free! 

With corn he wooed the sullen soil, 
But more with learning, home and toil, 
Till now no vineyard of the sun 
Blooms like the wilderness he won. 

Inspired by faith, in purpose great. 
He steadfast set his church and state ; 
Made them to stand 'gainst flood and shock. 
For both he built upon the rock. 

One taught — to God and conscience true — 
More light to seek, the right to do : 
The other broadened to the span 
Of man's equality with man. 

Children of fathers such as he, 

Be ours his true nobility! 

Lord of the realm, he served its growth; 

To serve — be still the freeman's oath! 

[47] 



CENTENNIAL HYMN, 1876 

PRAISE be to God, whose cloud by day 
And fire by night have led the way 
Till sure and staunch the nation clears 
Its cycle of a hundred years. 

A hundred years of growth and grace; 
And lo, a sparse dependent race, 
Within the Atlantic border pent, 
Hath broadened o'er a continent. 

From grander heights attained, we bless 
The grand beginnings, none the less: 
Unhushed by time, their utterance rings 
And stirs us still to grander things. 

Today before us rise sublime 
The giants of that early time 
As fearing God, not kings, they dare 
A freeman's commonwealth declare. 



[48] 



THE FLAG 

LIKE the grass swayed to and fro 
Over which the breezes go, 
Like long tresses tumbhng down 
RippHng up from foot to crown, 

Like billows rolling on the ocean, 
Our glorious flag floats full and free. 
Its matchless hues now interfuse, 
And now swell wide against the tide 
That bloats its straining canopy; 
Like smoke it wreathes in rills, and breathes 
Its fainting blaze into the haze, 
And slowly palpitates until 
It lures the eye as if it still 
Went rippling further through the sky — 

The very poetry of motion! 

Emblem thou of liberty, 
Banner of the brave and free, 
Stars and stripes! Red, white and blue! 
Old Thirteen, new Thirty- two! 
Afloat aloft on land or ocean. 
There's not an eye with tears untraced 
That sees thy glory in the sky; 



[49] 



There's no true heart that would not die 
To keep thy scroll, no stripe erased, 
No star obscured, still floating high; 
No wanderer, far from home, beholds 
Without a thrill thy sheltering folds ; 
There's no man, worthy to be free. 
Who doth not look and cling to thee 
With all a patriot's devotion. 



[50] 



THE SOLDIER'S HOME 
' 1861-1881 

A MOTHER'S kiss — a sweetheart's 
sigh, — 
A cottage door, red-arched with rose; 
A fair young soldier cries Good-bye, 
And to the front of battle goes. 

Wounded at Malvern Hill he fell; 

In Libby wasted, heart and limb; 
Kinder hath death been than the shell 

At Gettysburg that shattered him. 

Yet dared he all, and all he bore. 

What need feared he, come late or soon? 
Had not his country o'er and o'er 

Pledged him her laurel and her boon? 

Nation and state keep well their trust; 

Yet lest one roofless veteran roam, 
Mother, sweetheart and roses — dust, 

Add we our gift — a soldier's home. 



[51] 



THE CAPITOL AT 
WASHINGTON 

THIS is the terrace of the Capitol. 
The July sun sets slowly in the west 
And with its glow suffuses there the sky 
'Gainst which the monument springs high 

and white. 
The city roofs are clustered in the green 
Luxuriant foliage of the summer leaves; 

While near at hand against these marble 

walls 
Sweep up soft lawns like emerald set with 

pearl. 
The hum of the long summer day is past, 
And silence, yet more eloquent, has come — 
The silence of the hushing of the earth, 
As if in his great arm God gave it rest. 
Sweetness and light are laid upon its face, — 
The sweetness of the light of dying day, 
So exquisite that though it seems unwaned 
It quenches not the young moon's crescent 

horn 
Which shines serene and clear half up the 

sky. 



[52] 



Sweetness and light it is, but, more than 

these. 
It is the embodied deity of peace, — 
The peace of nature's love enfolding down, 
The peace that puts to rest the heart of 

man. 
The peace of land and people blessed by 

God. 

Southward, between the arches of the trees, 
The gleam of the Potomac answers back. 
As it lies lingering at the bathing feet 
Of the Virginia hills whose tops are crowned 
With verdure and with rich dark cooling 

woods. 
Across from shore to shore the long bridge 

runs 
And with its slender stretch yet firmly links 
Forever to each other North and South. 
What memories throng it now, dense as the 

hosts 
That made it echo once the tread of war! 
Lo, there the field where freedom's mighty 

heart 
Throbbed in the breasts of chivalry and 

youth. 
And sped to battle which it bled to win 
For those it fought for and for those it 

fought. 

[53] 



There lie the ashes of the patriot dead 
Who people now the spaces of the sky 
And thence look down upon a land re- 
deemed, 
On shackled bondmen disenthralled and 

free, 
A broken union whole — united states, 
Aye, and united hearts, — one people all. 



[54] 



A KINDLY CRITIC 

OH, my baby with soft white cheeks! 
Oh, my baby with wise blue eyes! 
Nestle your head down under my chin, 
Hear papa sing of the sea and the skies. 

Nobody else thinks he can sing: 
You are so little you tolerate him, 

And when you laugh and look up in his face, 
His heart is happiness full to the brim. 

Homely red flannel night-gown on, 

You have gone to sleep while he holds 
you fast; 
Dreamless you slumber, but wide wakes he 
And walks with the shadowy dreams of 
the past. 



[55] 



APR 14 1915 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

lllililllllililliliilil 

015 762 550 




